NORTH FORK RESERVOIR ☆ My Water

The record and the river

Where this structure is measured

A green link is DWR's own: either its telemetry inventory maps this WDID to that station, or the station is named for this WDID (0700553 → 0700553A). An amber one is ours — the station sits within 250 m and shares a distinctive word with this structure's name, which is a strong hint rather than a DWR statement that this gage meters this structure. Wrong? Tell us.

In short

NORTH FORK RESERVOIR holds 8 decreed rights on NORTH FORK SOUTH ARKANSA. No active call senior to its rights reaches its district today (20 active calls checked), so it is in priority now. 17 further calls state no district and sit outside this one, so they are counted here rather than assumed either way. That is today's position; the weeks ahead cannot be projected for it: no call in the record verifiably applies to this district (statements and caller locations checked). In a median year over its last 15 recorded years it diverts 51 acre-feet. It was a party to 6 court cases that also touched 17 other structures.

Assembled from the figures on this page — every number above is checked against them before it is shown (7 checked). The detail, with its method, is in the cards below.

Dam safety

Source: DWR Dam Safety’s jurisdictional-dam inventory (damsafety/damsafetydaminfojd), refreshed weekly. DWR’s record for this dam carries no WDID and no matched NID id, so it is joined by name and position: “NORTH FORK” 0.167 mi away. More than half of Colorado’s jurisdictional dams can be reached no other way; judge the match before relying on it. Hazard class describes the consequence of failure, not the likelihood of it. DWR’s dam record.

Current administration

● In priority — no active call senior to this structure's rights affects its district (20 active call(s) checked).

17 further calls state no district and sit outside this one, so they are counted here rather than assumed either way.

Which of its rights are out of priority?

The outlook for the weeks ahead is not computable for this structure: no call in the record verifiably applies to this district (statements and caller locations checked). Today’s position is a separate question, and it is answered in Current administration above — that screen reads the district’s active calls and needs no reference gage.

Where it sits in line

Priority 1874-05-01 — 104th most senior of the 1491 structures with decreed rights in this water districtDWR's administrative subdivision of a river basin; the unit calls are usually stated in..

Under prior appropriationColorado's rule for sharing water: first in time, first in right. Age decides, not proximity or need., everything ahead of it in this line is satisfied in full before it receives any water. Immediately ahead: MONARCH SNOW MAKING DIV PT (1874-05-01)☆. Immediately behind: SUPPLY DITCH (1874-05-12)☆.

On NORTH FORK SOUTH ARKANSA at river mile 60.3, it is 2nd of 14 down the reach. Immediately upstream: ISLAND LAKE MIN LEVEL☆. Immediately downstream: HUNKYDORY LAKE MIN LEVEL☆.

Position on the modelled network, not a claim about whose water this is — a stream carries water from many rights at once, and diverted water returns to it.

Decreed rights (9)

Amounts marked cfs are flow rates; AF are stored volumes (storage rights are decreed in acre-feet). An absolute amount of 0.0 beside an alt-point amount is not a dead right: the water is decreed at another structure, and that row records permission to divert it here instead (an alternate point or exchange). A case listing several numbers reflects the original decree plus later change cases.

How much of this decree was in priority, by day

A right is in priority on a day when it is senior to every call administering this structure. Of its 0.148 cfs decreed rate, the average day over the last 6 year(s) had 0.143 cfs in priority (96% of the decree). No call in effect is a free river — that was 0.0% of days.

On 12 days some rights were in priority and others were not — seniority splits a decree rather than switching it off. Calls are set and released at a time of day, not at midnight, so a day is counted by the hour: a call setting at 4pm costs that day a third of its rate, not all of it.

This is paper water. It is the decreed rate that was in priority — not water that was physically in the stream, and not water this structure diverted. A ditch can be in priority for 50 cfs on a day the creek carries five. What that distinction means →

Legal record & documents

16 decreed actions on record across 15 court cases: 09CW0138, 07CW0111, 21CW3064, 04CW0125, 02CW0180, 94CW0058, 87CW0061, 23CW3046, 84CW0141, 09CW0127 and 5 more below.

343 imaged documents on DWR’s shelf for this structure — 339 water-court documents across 31 cases, including 32 decrees. Every row opens the scanned PDF at DWR. Listing as of 2026-10-06.

Imaged documents at DWR. DWR keeps the scanned documents for this structure — decrees, rulings, plats, correspondence — in its Laserfiche archive. Open the list directly: imaged documents for 1103300 ↗ (indexed by structure, not by case — the cases listed above appear within the list).

Other DWR records for this structure: DWR’s page for this structure ↗ — net amounts, water rights, transactions & adjudication history, and diversion records, all on that one page. On this site: the district’s full legal picture →

Structures it shares court cases with

This structure was a party to 6 court cases that also touched 17 other structures — changes of water right, augmentation plans, exchanges. Being parties to the same case does not by itself mean water moved between them; which way it ran, and how much, is in the decree.

Also a party to 1 omnibus adjudication (07CW0111, 14 structures). Those settled many rights at once and are listed separately: they say these structures were adjudicated together, not that they deal with each other.

Recorded use (last 15 years on record)

Years far under the decreed amount? That gap has a name — paper water vs. wet water, explained on this structure.

In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 51 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 0 AF — 0% of that, and 1st lowest of the 15 years with a recorded volume.

This structure records both diversions and reservoir releases — they are separate water movements and are accounted separately below.

Trends for this structure

Recorded use shows no clear trend over its last 15 recorded years — which is itself worth knowing.

Its reference gage, North Fork Reservoir Outlet: no clear flow trend.

Every gage and reach in this district →

How good is our record of it?

Grade B (8/10 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not.